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Proto-Samoyedic, or Proto-Samoyed, is the reconstructed ancestral language of the Samoyedic languages: Nenets ( Tundra and Forest), Enets, Nganasan, Selkup, as well as extinct Kamas and Mator. Samoyedic is one of the principal branches of the Uralic language family, and its ancestor is Proto-Uralic. It has been suggested that Proto-Samoyedic greatly influenced the development of Tocharian, an Indo-European language. ^[1]

Phonology

A fairly complex system of vowel phonemes is reconstructed for Proto-Samoyedic:

The system is retained relatively faithfully in Selkup (though expanded with vowel length). Two of the vowel contrasts are however only retained in Nganasan: the distinction of front and back reduced vowels, and that of *i versus *e. For the remainder of the family, following the mergers *e > *i and *ə̈ > *ə, a further shared change is raising of *ä > *e. ^[2] Earlier works often thus give a slightly different transcription of several vowels: ^[3]

Even though the number of vowel phonemes was high, there were no long vowels or phonemic diphthongs. A peculiar feature of the reconstructed vowel system is the occurrence of vowel sequences, which consisted of any full vowel followed by the reduced vowel /ə/: for example, *tuə 'feather', *kåəså 'man'. These sequences were not diphthongs; the vowels belonged to separate syllables. Evidence of the vowel sequences has been preserved in only part of the Samoyedic languages, primarily in Nganasan and Enets. Wagner-Nagy (2004) ^[4] lists the following examples:

• Close + reduced: *iə, *iə̈, *üə, *üə̈, *uə, *uə̈
• Mid + reduced: *öə, *ëə, *oə, *oə̈
• Open + reduced: *äə (> *eə), *åə
• Close + open: *uå
• Reduced + open: *əå

Proto-Samoyedic had vowel harmony like many other Uralic languages. Harmony determined whether a front vocalic or a back vocalic allomorph of a suffix was used. However, the restrictions imposed by vowel harmony were not absolute because also disharmonic word-stems can be reconstructed. Such stems break vowel harmony by combining front and back vowels: e.g. Proto-Samoyedic *kålä 'fish', *wäsa 'iron'.

In contrast to the vowel system, the consonant system is rather simple with only 13 phonemes:

The exact sound value of the affricate is not entirely clear; it may originally have been retroflex [ʈ͡ʂ] rather than dental or alveolar [t͡s]. It has remained distinct only in Selkup, merging elsewhere with *t.

As in Proto-Uralic, the ancestor of Proto-Samoyedic, the first syllable of words was always stressed, and hence there was no contrastive stress. Contrastive tones did not occur either.

Phonotactics

As in Proto-Uralic, words could begin with a maximum of one consonant: initial consonant clusters were not allowed. Another phonotactic constraint inherited from Proto-Uralic was that the consonants *r and *ŋ were not allowed word-initially. Proto-Samoyedic had, however, innovated final consonant clusters in a few words. In all of them, the first consonant in the cluster was the semivowel *j, as in *wajŋ 'breath'. Thus, the syllable structure of Proto-Samoyedic was altogether (C)V(j)(C).

Inside words, clusters of two consonants were common. Clusters of three consonants were again possible only if the first consonant of the cluster was *j, as in *wajkkə 'neck'.

Later development

Palatalization of consonants, most prominently *k, has occurred in all recorded Samoyedic languages. This is however a post-Proto-Samoyedic development, as the details differ in each branch due to vowel developments. ^[5]

• The Nenets-Enets group palatalizes both *k and *s to /sʲ/.
• Nganasan, Selkup and Kamassian palatalize *k to a distinct /ʃ/. Nganasan also palatalizes *s to /sʲ/.
• Mator appears to have no palatalization of *k; however, *s is, somewhat unusually, velarized to /k/.
• Nenets-Enets and Nganasan have prominent palatalization of other consonants as well, leading to contraction of the vowel system.

Other widespread developments include prothesis of *ŋ, initial lenition of *p, and fortition of the semivowels *w, *j.

• In Nganasan, Nenets and Enets, PS vowel-initial words gain an initial /ŋ/ via rhinoglottophilia (which may be subsequently palatalized to /nʲ/). This is occasionally found in other Samoyedic languages as well, usually with the exception of Mator.
• PS initial *p is lenited to /f/ in Enets, /h/ in Mator and Nganasan. (/f/ still appears in the oldest Nganasan records.)
• PS initial *w remains only in Nenets. In Selkup, it becomes /kʷ/; all other varieties shift it to /b/.
• PS initial *j remains in both Nenets and Enets. It becomes /tʲ/ in Selkup, and /dʲ/ in other varieties.
• In Mator and Kamassian, /b/, /dʲ/ are furthermore nasalized to /m/, /nʲ/ preceding a word-internal nasal. This has been an areal change, shared also with Siberian Turkic languages such as Khakas. ^[6]

Morphology

Proto-Samoyedic was a fairly typical agglutinative language with only little morphophonological alteration, apart from vowel harmony. In the following, -A marks an archiphoneme realized as -å in words with back-vocalic harmony, -ä in words with front-vocalic harmony.

Three numbers were distinguished: singular, dual and plural. Possession was indicated with possessive suffixes.

Nouns distinguished seven cases:

• Nominative: (no ending)
• Genitive: *-n
• Accusative: *-m
• Locative: *-kə-nA
• Ablative: *-kə-t(ə)
• Dative: *-kə-
• Prosecutive: *-mə-nA

Verbs were conjugated for mood, tense, number and person. There were also separate subjective and objective conjugations.

Derivational suffixes were numerous, and could form both verbs and nominals. ^[7]

Development

Most Proto-Samoyedic phonemes continue the corresponding Proto-Uralic phonemes unchanged. The most prominent changes are: ^{[5] [8]}

• PU *s, š > PEU *θ > PS *t.
• PU *ś > PS *s.
• PU *δ > PS *r.
• PU *δ́' as well as PU *l in most positions > PS *j. *l remains initially before PU *ï, ^[9] as well as in PS intervocalic positions.
• PU *x > PS *ø, when before a consonant.
• PU *u > PS *ø preceding a PU stem vowel *a.
• PU *ï > PS *ë in PS closed syllables.
• PU *ü > PS *i. PS *ü is of secondary origin.
• PU stem-final *i is reduced to PS *ø̈/ø (per harmony), and if not preceded by an original consonant cluster, subsequently lost.
• PU *a, o generally become PS *å, though in many cases PS *a also appears; the conditioning for this is not entirely clear.
• PU stem-final *å becomes PS *ä after a lateral consonant (PU *l or *δ́; this points to an intermediate stage *ĺ in the development of the latter.)
• PU *o remains in monosyllabic roots (both primary, and those resulting from loss of final *ø).
• PU *k, *x, *w, *j are lost between vowels in roots of the shape *CVCi, yielding monosyllabic PS roots.
• PU *k and preconsonantal *w are generally lost in medial consonant clusters.

Examples:

• PU *äjmä "needle" > PS *äjmä
• PU *kala "fish" > PS *kålä
• PU *muna "egg" > PS *mønå
• PU *weti "water" > PS *wet
• PU *nüδi "handle" > PS *nir
• PU *ïpti "hair" > PS *ëptø
• PU *täwði "full" > PS *tärø̈
• PU *mośki- "to wash" > PS *måsø-
• PU *suksi "ski" > PS *tutø
• PU *ńïxli "arrow" > PS *ńëøj
• PU *käxli "tongue" > PS *käøj

Numerals

Proto-Samoyedic numerals with wider Uralic cognates are: ^[10]

• *ketä ‘2’
• *säjʔwǝ ‘7’
• *wüt ‘10’ (cognate with Finno-Ugric numerals for ‘5’)

Innovative Proto-Samoyedic numerals with no apparent wider Uralic cognates: ^[10]

• *nakur ‘3’
• *tättǝ ‘4’
• *sǝmpǝlaŋkǝ ‘5’
• *mǝktut ‘6’

References

Janhunen, Juha 1998. Samoyedic. In: Daniel Abondolo (ed.), The Uralic Languages, pp. 457–479. London / New York: Routledge.

Sources

• Janhunen, Juha (1977). Samojedischer Wortschatz: Gemeinsamojedische Etymologien. Castreanumin toimitteita. Vol. 17. Helsinki. ISBN  951-45-1161-1. ISSN  0355-0141.{{ cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher ( link)